


The Gods Are Mostly Concerned About Trees

by GreenasCole



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Reality, Creature Stiles, D/s relationship, Derek and Stiles are Mates, Evil Kate, Hale Family Feels, Light BDSM, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mating Rituals, Pack Dynamics, Past Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Secrets, Stiles and the Twins are not, Stilinski Family Feels, Time Travel, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 02:27:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3364325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenasCole/pseuds/GreenasCole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek doesn't want a mate.  He thought he'd met The One once, and she set his house on fire, killing his father. Then he meets Stiles, who is possibly less sane than Kate, much more shifty, and comes complete with identical twin bodyguards fro some reason.</p><p>Stiles has  many great ideas, but attempting to re-write history after everyone dies in the Dead Pool turns out not to be one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gods Are Mostly Concerned About Trees

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what to say about this. To start, this fic is inspired by KouriArashi's The Searching Ceremonies, Billtheradish's Indelible Marks, and Metsiket's Play it Again. I've probably misspelled all of those. Throw in some non-traditional relationship dynamics, a lot of questionable coping mechanism, and some kink and you have...this.
> 
> Global Trigger Warnings for child abuse, non-graphic references to non-con of various flavors, violence, mind manipulation, pathological lying. The D/s stuff is between Stiles and the Twins, mostly. I'll probably wind up ending all sorts of other tags.
> 
> Unbeta'd, updates weekly, won't get a proper editing until it's done.

Derek glowers at the inviting façade of the Guiding Light Wellness Center, his family’s behemoth goodwill/outreach/vanity project and tries to disintegrate the place with power of his mind, and hopefully all the simpering supe-chasing flirts inside along with it.

“If I have to arrest on you on suspicion of premeditated murder it will be your mother that goes to jail. Provided they ever found our bodies, of course.”

Derek transfers his baleful glare to his dad. Technically John is his stepdad, but regardless of the way in which he became that, the facts remains the only reaction the man has to a look that would freeze the blood in most people’s veins is a small smile and warm flush of amusement curling through his scent. He’s family, end of story. “I know. I made a deal.” One entire year. Three hundred and sixty-four days of blissful freedom from parental interference in his love and social lives (or unhealthy and utter lack thereof, as they liked to say), and all he had to do was attend a party and stay until the end.

“Would finding a mate really be the worst thing in the world?”

“Yes,” Derek replies looking him dad in the eye, maintaining his dour expression for a good ten seconds before it crumbles at the edges, humor pressing in. “I’m only twenty-one. And…”

John sighs. “And you just moved back into town. And you’re just about to start a new job. And Saturn is in the fifth house of Mercury. I know.” He makes a show of thinking intently, tilting his head back and pursing his lips. “Maybe you could think of it like a game.”

“A game,” Derek repeats flatly. As the Sheriff John has to keep his puckish tendencies on a short leash, which makes it all the more entertaining (see: frightening) when they rear their mischievous little heads.

“I’ll give you a shiny nickel for every person you don’t send running for the hills with your sparkling personality.”

He totally will too, because John enjoys trolling the stuck up morons that turn up for the event in droves even more than Derek does, but has to be much more subtle about it. “Make it a dime and you have a deal.”

“Done.”

They shake on it.

Derek almost bolts three steps from the car but his dad’s hand is on the back of his neck before he can even tense to run. It never ceases to amaze him how much more terrifying the man is for having become a werewolf so unusually late in life, all the observational skills gained as human through decades of training and experience magnified by the Bite. “I wasn’t going to run,” he lies.

John snorts in amusement. “Uh huh. Keep walking or I’ll get Laura to come down here and chaperone you.”

Derek shudders at the very idea. Becoming a mother of three and the Center’s manager hadn’t mellowed her so much as given a place to pour her maniacal excess of energy that is not him. Their mom has strictly forbidden her from attending the festival on her own but if given a chance she will jump on the offer to simultaneously micromanage the staff until they stage a mutiny and shove every remotely available bachelorette under the age of ninety into Derek’s jealously guarded personal space. “Fine. You win.”

They use the employee entrance on the side of the main building, the one concession Derek absolutely demands. There’s nothing like walking into a room and having literal thousands of people stop and ogle you like a piece of meat. Beacon Hills has five Packs, an incredible number of werewolves for a town of only thirty thousand, but only a scant handful of those are in the right age range, worse he’s _Derek Hale_ (he absolutely loathes the way people say his name, like he’s half celebrity half death by chocolate) and there’s not a chance in hell his entrance could go unnoticed, not through the front. It’s not paranoia if they really are lying in wait for you, nor is it cowardly to want to avoid reimagining The Battle of Thermopylae to save his dignity from the ravaging hordes of prospective mates.

As arranged in advance Alan Deaton, Druid, family friend, veterinarian, and laconic wise ass meets them in the office to slap the mating mark on Derek’s right hand. In theory two people meet and link hands through the ceremonial Door With A Big Whole Cut In It (the ancient Celts were bug fucking nuts), the blank marks develop like a Polaroid branding them with the ‘wolf’s Pack Sign for a year and a day or until the mating is made official.

“And this actually works?” he asks looking at the skin on his hand, only a faint sheen visible where the man brushed him with Druid Invisible Ink or what the hell ever.

“It has a very high success rate,” Deaton breezes.

Derek scowls at him. He hates that this security measure only exists because of him, because he let himself be entranced by sultry voice on a nice rack wielding a two-bit glamour to simulate a mate bond. “Is that a Money Back If They’re a Mass Murdering Psychopath Guarantee?”

“Naturally.”

“We didn’t pay you,” John points out fighting smile.

“Then I’ll give you your money back, _plus_ interest.”

“Good man.”

John is no longer Derek’s favorite. “Let’s just get this over with.” He stalks out of the office and nearly bowls over a kid lurking outside. “What are you doing here? This area is private.”

Dark amber eyes blink at him under a mess of spiky dark brown hair before the kid lets out a woozy laugh that carries entirely too much weight for someone who barely looks old enough to even _attend_ the festival. “ _Dude_ , just…dude.”

Derek stares at the bizarre creature that’s still using him as support to keep from falling over for no particular reason. The kid is wearing a strange combination of clothes. Oh the shirt , jeans, sneakers, and hoodie are normal enough on their own, but none of the sizes match, the yellow band tee clashes with the virulently purple sweatshirt, and the laces on the shoes are tightened so much it’s creasing the material. More tellingly, each article of clothing is giving off a power stale scent of a completely different person, meaning this kid most likely raided random lockers in the Men’s room and grabbed the first things that kind of fit. “Are you homeless or something?” he asks bluntly, annoyed at scent confusion for reasons he has no intention of examining.

The kid gives him a glare that’s impressive even by his standards and grits out a harsh, “Yes. Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’ll be going.” He turns throwing out a cloud of anger, shame, and desperation into the air, only to freeze when he lays eyes on John in uniform, the dark emotion-scents growing even more complex and poisonous.

Homeless, snarky, and a bad history with the law. If the kid isn’t careful he’s going to wind up getting adopted by Derek’s mom, and Isaac will have a roommate.

“You need some help, son?” John asks scrutinizing the boy, who flinches visibly over the word “son”, leading Derek to tack on Orphan to the list.

Suddenly the black hole of angst is gone, replaced by a mask of bright insincerity. “No sir, Sheriff. Just got a little lost and run over by a Sour Wolf, but other than that I’m good.”

John covers his laugh with a cough. Badly. “Are you hear for the festival?”

“The Feast of Wannahawkaloogie? No thanks. Getting pounced on by a supernatural creature and dragged off to their love den isn’t really on my top ten list of things to do before I graduate high school.”

Derek almost smiles. Who the hell _is_ this kid? He dead certain that not a single one of the thousands of people hoping to match up a werewolf or vampire or whatever else is here today would speak to him candidly like this. Hell, most of them would probably throw themselves off a cliff before using a word like supernatural or paranormal instead of the socially appropriate term parallel (because heaven forbid that a member of the species that makes up 99.9% of the world’s population in any way suggest that it’s unusual to suddenly sprout fur and claws). “It’s _Lughnasadh_. And speaking of names..?”

For some reason this of all things trips the kid up. “It’s uh…Hayden, Hayden Reese, but everyone calls me Stiles.”

It doesn’t sound like a lie, more like he’s not sure if what he’s saying is accurate, which makes no sense because it’s his own god damn name, and Derek wishes his mom had shown him how to access memories because right now he wants nothing more than to shove his claws in Stiles’s neck and extract his secrets. Failing that he’ll give some serious consideration to bodily picking the boy and shaking him to see what falls out. “What the hell is a Stiles?” he growls.

The smirk the kid gives him does odd things to his head. “A synonym for Badass, obviously. Now if we’re done here, I need to find a computer so I can look some shit up.”

“Just hold up a second,” John admonishes. “Do you mind telling me exactly what you were looking for when you got “lost”?”

“Yeah, I do,” Stiles replies bristling. “Am I under arrest, _Sheriff_.”

“Why are you angry?” Derek asks. Furious is actually a better description, the scent laced with a healthy amount of something he thinks is self-recrimination, though it’s hard to tell with the way Stile’s s emotions keep bouncing all over the place.

“Aaaaand I’m out. Peace!”

John steps forward and grabs onto the kid’s hoodie. “Not just yet. I’m not done…”

That’s as far as he gets before the kid does some kind of ninja move that uses his sweatshirt to tangle Johns arm around his own throat and leave his back exposed at the same time.

Derek shifts and snarls at the assault on his packmate, his _dad_.

And Stiles _rolls his eyes_. “Seriously? Okay one: you’re just not that scary when you’re eyebrows are all AWOL, and two: he _let_ me get him in this hold, so can it with the growly.

John lets out a rolling belly laugh.   “I’m impressed, Stiles. Where’ you learn how to do that?”

Grief. Rage. Guilt. All so strong they’re literally staggering, and John nearly shifts, eyes glowing gold.

Stiles releases him from the hold and backs away with an unreadable expression on his face, scent fading once more into a dark, uncertain morass of severe emotional strain. “My dad taught me.”

Derek wants _out_ of this conversation. _Now_. But he has to doing _something_ to help first. “Go up the stairs at the end of the hall and head left. There’s a computer lab.”

“Groovy,” Stiles says, fake smile once more in place as he walks away at a pace just shy of actively being a scurry.

John waits until Stiles slams is way into the stairway to remark, “That is one very troubled young man.”

Derek shrugs. He really has no words for what Stiles is or isn’t.

“I have to hand it to you, you sure can pick ‘em.”

Derek starts to nod, catches himself, and does a double take at his dad. “ _What!?_ ” he chokes. Because _no_.

“I seem to recall you telling everyone you were straight,” John adds in a faintly amused tone.

Derek is straight, at least until he makes it through Lughnasadh and wins his No Meddling Ban. Otherwise he’d have to deal with twice as many ham-fisted setup attempts. “Doesn’t matter. He’s not a participant.” And way too young. And snarky little prick. And…

“You know when I first saw him I thought I was hallucinating,” John says out of nowhere.

“Uh, what?”

“That boy is practically a clone of my late father in law. Remind me to check the exterior cameras to see where he heads when he leaves. I think I’d like to have another chat with him when he’s not defensive and cornered.”

“Okay,” Derek agrees, now uncomfortable for multiple reasons. Chief among them that he finally realizes _why_ Stiles’s eyes had seemed so familiar. They’re exactly like his Aunt Claudia’s, John’s first wife.

“You sure you don’t want to go after him?” John asks with a level look.

“Positive,” he says easily. After all, his dad’s going to track him down anyway. He can change his mind any time he wants.

“Well, since you think you can do better…”

Derek very nearly changes his mind on the spot but a fierce spike of uncertainty stops him cold. The knowledge that he can always see him later is enough to let him walk away for the moment, but the idea of pursuing him now and finding that something really is there…

He’d rather face Thermopylae any day.

 

***

 

Humans like to romanticize the Festival to death, focusing on the werewolf mating aspect and the ancient Celtic mystique of it all, but ultimately it more or less finds its way into semi-traditional territory and the Center is a good place for it. There are multiple gyms for pickup games of basketball, ballrooms for non-stop dancing, dozens of smaller studios where people are engaged in less strenuous competitions like chess and poker, and that doesn’t even include the manicured grounds outside or the nature trails wending through the nearer parts of the preserve. Then of course there’s the food and drink. Lughnasadh is a harvest festival after all, and while John typically has the entire Sheriff’s department enforcing the legal drinking age it’s a token effort at best. The result is a mass of young men and women getting tipsy on beer, horrible carnival food, and enthusiastic competition while seeking out those of compatible interest and enticing appearance. For purely human couples the handfasting is about as binding as the exchanging of promise rings, but a surprisingly high percentage of matches that form on this day, even between teenagers, have a tendency to make it through the long haul, hence the ritual’s endurance. Derek is just grateful for chaos of it all, because it lets him fade into the background at least once in a while, more so as the afternoon drags on.

Stiles on the other hand keeps finding ways to ensnare his attention just by being aggressively himself. The first such occasion occurs a whole two hours after their run in the back hallway.

Derek has just found himself a nice blind corner to lean in when he hears that voice snarl, “Oh for fuck’s sake. Some things _never_ change!” Curious, he listens in, tracking Stiles’s footsteps to a confusing tangle of shuffling and jeering.

“Give…it…back,” a boy wheezes desperately, clearly having some kind of respiratory episode.

“Having trouble breathing?” a smarmy male voice asks. “Isn’t that why you’re here? To get the Bite so you won’t be such a complete waste of oxygen.” From the sound of it Smarmy thinks he’s clever, not committing aggravated assault.

At least until Stiles lets some of the air out of the windbag.

There’s a series of dull impacts, a shrill yelp, and the double thump of someone falling to their knees. “Having trouble breathing?” Stiles purrs. “Here.”

Asthma takes a double hit off the inhaler. “Thanks, dude. I owe you one.”

“Eh, it’s no big. My best friend had asthma.”

“Oh. Wait, _had_?”

Stiles coughs. “Yeah. Oh look, angry Neanderthals. What a welcome distraction.”

John, who like Derek has most likely been observing from nearby, joins in the conversation. “Trouble, boys?”

“No sir,” Smarmy squeaks. “Just playing around.”

“Save it for the lacrosse field, Jackson,” John advises. “Move along.” There’s a pause punctuated my some concerned humming. “You okay, Scott?”

“I’m good, Sheriff. Thanks.”

Derek swears under his breath. Asthma must be Scott McCall, son of Melissa McCall, John’s oldest friend, and here is sitting back and enjoying the show while the poor kid suffocates so some bullies can get their rocks off. Perfect.

“Are you sure? Derek can take you to your mom in the clinic.”

“Derek?”

Stiles snorts. “Yeah, the lurker wolf is hanging out over there congratulating himself his super sneakiness.”

“Would like to file a complaint for stalking?” John asks in a tight trying-not-to-laugh voice.

Stiles hums pretending to think it over. “Naw, I’ll let it go just this once.”

“You are a very understanding and conscientious young man.”

“Stop it; I’m going to blush. Come on, Scotty. Let’s go see if we can find a room full of video games or something.”

“Um, I think I’m being kidnapped?” Scott says, voice already moving away. “Help?”

“Like I said, I need a new wheezy sidekick. Congrats!”

“Hurray?”

Derek laughs under his breath until the earlier part of that conversation hits him all over again. Apparently both Stiles’s family _and_ best friend died, recently by all appearances, and if it was from natural causes Derek will eat his favorite leather jacket. “What do think happened to him?”

John sighs. “I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell going to find out how Claudia could have a nephew I’ve never heard of.”

“A _nephew_?” Derek repeats.

“I don’t think his name is really Hayden Reese. In fact, I’d bet my badge that it’s Llucheden Rhys, and for some reason he’s grown up mispronouncing it.”

“That’s…”

“Claudia’s father’s name, I know.”

Derek was going to say _Welsh_ , but that bit of information certainly clarifies John’s reaction to the kid. “I guess I should keep an eye on him, then.”

John snorts in amusement. “Just make sure that’s all you keep on him. Kid can’t be more than sixteen.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Derek groans, trying so very hard not remember the little tingle he got picturing Stiles kicking Smarmy-Jackson’s ass in Scott’s defense.

 

***

 

In need of a social palate cleanser he stalks into one of the larger rooms where there’s a wider selection of random people, as well as a buffet table (because nothing provides a polite conversational out more easily than the necessity of chewing). It takes him half an hour to make it from the door to the food, though, as a few dozen of the people who were too shy to approach on his first obligatory lap earlier have now loosened up enough to come and meet him. And ogle at him. And flirt with him. He nearly whimpers in relief when the knot of people surrounding him suddenly dissipates, but no sooner than he nabs a mini Cuban sandwich does he see _why_ everyone is suddenly giving him space.

Part of the tension he feels is because the person who’s cornered him is just a girl, a petite redhead no more than sixteen. The juxtaposition between her physical size and age only serves to magnify her presence however, every line of her posture and bearing radiating _Bow Mortals_ so strongly that men and women with decades on her fall under her sway with no apparent effort on her part. And she’s human. Derek hesitates to think about what this girl would be like as a ‘wolf (the words She-Alpha of Doom come to mind, a term Cora coined back when their mom was eight months pregnant with the twins).

“So, I hear you have a thing for your stepfather’s long lost nephew,” she says, as though anything about that statement comes close to appropriate.

Well that didn’t take long. “Excuse me?” he asks feigning ignorance.

The girl gives him a withering look (she still hasn’t introduced herself, likely because he’s just supposed to know who she is). “Oh he’s causing quite the stir. I heard he stumbled into a room full of druids and they fell all over themselves inviting him to join them.”

Stiles. Is magic. Derek has heard stranger suggestions, but it’s been a few years since the last one. “So?” Hopefully if he’s terse enough the girl ( _Lydia Martin_ , the name just materializes in is brain; he thinks it’s probably Isaac’s fault) will just leave off and find somewhere else to fling her social weight around.

“So, meeting new people and forming mutually beneficial partnerships is what Lughnasadh is all about, right?” she asks sweetly before biting into a strawberry not-quite-suggestively.

Derek is pretty sure he’s being fake-flirted with, though he has no idea why. She obviously knows he’s a werewolf and can see through her façade. Unless that’s the point. Fuck, he just doesn’t have the patience or social skills to play these kinds of games. Is there something you want?” he asks her point blank.

Lydia laughs prettily, leaning back just so in a way that draws the eye to eh graceful curve of her neck and expensively draped everything without being remotely inappropriate. She reaches out to place her hand lightly on the back of his. And goes rigid, fingers tensing to the point where her grip is starting to hurt. “I…nice meeting you,” she mumbles, turns, and vanishes in swirl of red hair and expensive perfume.

And here Derek was thinking Stiles would be the weirdest person he’d meet all day. Then again, there are stranger people in his own family.

“I want Stiles,” his Uncle Rand says without preamble, snagging his arm as leaves the ballroom in pursuit of Lydia (there’s a profoundly uneasy feeling churning in his gut and he wants to know what the hell that was all about, not the flirting, but the _leaving_ ).

Derek blinks at him a couple of times trying to decode the statement. Rand is the only person in the family who hates words even more than he does, a condition which has gotten worse since losing Derek’s father, his twin. “That sounds like something you talk to Aunt Charlotte about,” he quips.

Rand gives him the patented Hale Eye Roll of Absolute Done-ness. “I want him to work for me. I left that Rune I’ve been working on in greenhouse two and he finished it. Go. Fetch. Mate.”

For him this is practically verbose, but then that Rune or whatever it is has been occupying his increasingly frustrated attention for weeks now. As happy as Derek is that he won’t be smelling that angry diesel fuel scent anymore, he’s not going to go haring after a teenage boy just because his uncle wants to play the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. “No,” he says, hiding his glee at out-tersing the man. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Alan called,” Rand huffs. He tries to avoid other practitioners ( _I’m a_ botanist _, damn it, not a_ shaman _!_ ). “There’s some kind of feedback building up in the wards.”

“Is that bad?” It reminds Derek of something a character on one of the Stargate series would say right before a bunch of colorful pyrotechnics go off.

“Hey, uh, Derek right?” Scott says sliding into the conversation with a lot of nervously twitching. “Have you seen Stiles anywhere?”

This is getting ridiculous. “No,” he growls. “Why?”

Scott gulps. “Oh, uh, nevermind. He’s kind of weird anyway. I’ll just…go…”

“Spit it out Scott,” Derek says with a pleasant smile.

From the way the boy blanches it probably comes off as murderous. “We were going to throw a ball around but then these sketchy-looking identical twins came around a corner and he got this look and told me to go and he’d be there soon,” Scott says in a breathless rush.

Derek snarls a curse under his breath. “Does Ferguson still have that witch working for him?” he asks Rand.

“Last I heard,” his uncle confirms with a frown. “Do I need to call Talia?”

“That’s the last thing we need,” Derek mutters. The Center is warded against supernatural threats, and the Ferguson Alpha definitely qualifies. Technically there are six packs in the greater Beacon Hills area, but Ferguson decided some time ago that Criminal Biker Gang is an appropriate an enlightened model for running a pack. The Twins Scott mentioned must be the Omegas his mom sometimes talks about with her friend Duke. Keeping Omegas surrounded by but not in a pack is a nearly extinct repulsive custom, one of several that tends to crop up when too many turned wolves come together and human cruelty overrides the instincts that come with the wolf. Keeping regular teenage boys in that type of environment would be abusive to say to say the least, but for werewolves it’s essentially a form of psychological and emotional _torture_. All that aside, Ferguson supposedly runs drugs among other less savory illicit activities, and the uses two young boys could be put to in that kind of operation doesn’t bear thinking on (not unless solutions involving claws, fangs, and multiple eviscerations are permissible). Both of them want to get the boys out of that toxic situation but Ferguson is just an eyelash away from being dumb enough to give them that kind of leverage.

Stiles talks and smells like a local and acts like he’s recently lost loved ones to some kind of violence. Members of a violent supernatural gang show up right after he does just as the wards begin to malfunction. Derek is drawing conclusions he doesn’t like. “Show me where they were headed.” He texts his dad a quick summary of his suspicions, getting an _Aw Hell, things were actually running smoothly this year_ in reply.

Scott leads him back towards the deserted administrative corridor where he’d first met Stiles (Derek idly notes that Stiles managed to show up in this hallway and the greenhouses, the only two areas that were actually locked, and wonders _why_ ). They step around a corner and nearly walk straight into Lydia.

“Un coup de foudre,” she murmurs eyes unfocused.

She screams.

If there was ever a comical understatement it was that. Comparing the flood of sound that spills out of her mouth is to call a Tyrannosaurus Rex a gecko. A small one. Blood literally runs from his ears as the banshee’s death wail pierces his skull (there’s no mistaking her for anything else). The sound cuts off as she collapses to floor, seizing.

Scott is yelling something but all Derek can here is a high pitched ringing while his eardrums are healing. He can feel his phone vibrating just fine though.

 _Banshee?_ John asks.

_Lydia Martin. She said “un coup de foudre” right before she wailed. Now seizing._

_A bolt of lightning. Llucheden means the same thing._

“We need to find Stiles. Now,” he snaps.

Scott flails his arms, shouting curses probably, and points emphatically down the hall.

Derek runs trying to get a scent but the AC has been recirculating air filled with the collected smells left by thousands of people and fuckton of food for hours now. Finally, _finally_ , his hearing returns and he skids to all halt, throwing everything he has into it.

“Did you really think I’d let you get away so easy?” a rough voice snarls. “You little bitches are _mine_.”

There’s a burst pained whimpers and muffled body blows, followed by the distinctive sound of someone breaking a broom over someone else’s head (yet another bit of bizarre knowledge Derek can blame his family for having).

“I think Things One and Two have had enough, so why don’t you back the fuck off you roided up perv,” Stiles spits. “I already called the cops.”

“I’ll be fast, then, little man.”

Derek will have to be as well. He mentally works out where the voices are coming from in the twisty rabbit warren that makes up the back of the building and bolts.

Stiles of course has to dig himself in deeper. “Dude, I can _see_ how much you’re getting off on this and the _little man_ here is definitely _you_.”

There’s the sound of a scuffle and that of wood falling on tile.

“You came here to be claimed by a wolf?” Ferguson seethes. “I’m an _Alpha_. I’ll show you what it means to be _claimed_. There’s going to be room in my pack for a new Omega once I’m done with these two.”

Derek vision goes red at the Alpha’s words. As he turns the last corner he lets out a furious roar of challenge that deepens into a bellow of absolute wrath when he sees scene laid out before him. The twins are down, a mess of blood and bruises. The Alpha has Stiles by the arm, all but crushing it in his grip. Ferguson is an ugly block of a man that looks like he was ordered special from Degenerate Thugs R Us, right down to the excessive number of low quality tattoos over his mustached bald head, blue jeans, biker jacket, and wife beater. Derek notices that Stiles is absolutely right about the state of the man’s pants, but of more immediate and less humorous concern are far less anemic bulges the Alpha’s muscles make in his clothes. He has at least three inches of height and forty pounds on Derek, which means a fight between them is only going to end one way. But Derek doesn’t actually need to win, just hold out. There are dozens of wolves in the Center, all of whom will be coming; he just has to occupy Ferguson until they arrive.

Stiles beats him to it. The instant the Alpha looks away, the kid palms something, a ring on keys from god only knows where, and knees Ferguson right between the legs. It’s a small target, sure, but Derek hears the snapping sound as one or more of the blood-filled tissues in the man’s penis rupture from the blow, and nearly stumbles mid-charge.

Then Stiles drives a car key through the Alpha’s left eye.

Several things happen in quick succession.

Ferguson roars, in pain and fear now as much as rage, and backhands the boy savagely.

Stiles goes down and scrambles for the jagged-edged length of broom handle.

Derek tenses in preparation for the leap that will bring down the already partially disabled Alpha.

The Twins see that the monster that has tormented them for years is vulnerable and take their shot. Too badly injured to reach anything vital on their own, the settle for hamstringing him, rendering his bulky leg muscles useless for all their strength.

He falls.

Stiles raises the improvised spear just in time for Alpha to skewer himself on it, a victim of his own massive body. The length of wood pierces upward under the chin and Stiles ducks out of the way. What happens to Alpha’s head when the broom handle catches on the baseboard and holds fast is going to feature prominently in Derek’s nightmares for the rest of his fucking _life_.

“ _Oh my God_ , I’ll wash but I’ll never be clean” Stiles moans wiping away a blob of _something_ that burst forth from the Alpha’s skull and splattered him across the face. In addition he’s bleeding freely from a cut just above his hairline where Ferguson hit him, but all things considered he’s gotten off light. “ _Blegh_. Can werewolves carry hepatitis? Oh fuck what about _rabies_. Was this guy rabid because that would explain a- _oof_!” he grunts as the Twins manage a painful lurch to almost-standing and wrap him up in a two-sided hug complete with vigorous scent marking.

Derek snarls, vision going red again.

The Twins snarl back.

“Shut it, Sour wolf,” Stiles wheezes from inside their death grip. They were _actually helpful_ so they get first dibs on Stiles time.”

They’re also not laying claim on him as anything other than pack. Derek’s instincts are still telling him to shred the interlopers into his territory, but it’s quiet enough now that he can settle for shifting back and glaring instead. “Are you alright?”

“I guess,” Stiles says with a derisive snort. “Unless you can get turned buy Alpha brains getting in an open wound. That’s _not a thing_ , right?”

“No.” Truthfully? Derek doesn’t have the slightest idea, it’s not exactly a situation that arises often enough for there to be conclusive studies.

John, a horde of allied werewolves, and a crowd of morbid lookie loos converge on them from all directions. Everyone gets arrested.

Oh well, Derek found a terrifying and magnificent maybe-mate _and_ gets to cut out early. He’s calling it a win.


End file.
